New books, including a true crime stunner

This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial kept me up reading late at night. So, be forewarned. On Father’s Day in 2005, in Victoria, Australia, Robbie Farquharson, separated from his wife, was driving his three young sons home to their mother at night when the car veered off the road and plunged into a farm dam. Farquharson survived the crash, but his boys drowned. He was charged with three counts of homicide. Farquharson claimed the cause of the crash was a coughing fit that rendered him unconscious. The question debated during his trial was whether or not the crash was an accident, or an act of revenge against his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Author Helen Garner was present in the courtroom each day during the defense and prosecution of Farquharson and for the verdict. She observes the attorneys and jurors with compassion, skepticism, and fascinating thoughts about human behavior as they wade through the witness accounts and forensic details. She doesn’t bog us down in the minutiae. Instead, she draws us in beside her, presenting a humane viewpoint that takes into account family frailties and loyalties, the power of uncertainty and judgment, and the many tangential victims during a trial of fierce need to get to the truth.

Here’s another Australian author, this one you might know if you read her memoir Tracks, the 1980 bestseller about her travels across the Australian desert with a dog and four camels when she was in her twenties (she’s now 73). Robyn Davidson has experienced more adventures between then and now, “from sixties street life, to the London literary scene; from migrating with nomads in India and Tibet, to marrying an Indian prince,” according to the book’s description, but it appears all this traveling had something to do with her mother’s suicide when Robyn was a young girl, that being a past avoided. From an article in the Guardian about the book and Davidson:

We don’t know why she was so determined to make the nine-month trek across the desert. Which is where Unfinished Woman comes in. Put the two books together, and it becomes apparent that the journey and her mother’s death were intimately connected, though not in a simple or explicable way.

Here’s what book review forecasts are saying:Publishers Weekly describes Unfinished Woman as “a raw and thorny memoir” and Kirkus Reviews says it’s “well-written and insightful but curiously lacking in emotion.” I haven’t read Tracks so don’t feel particularly drawn to read this, but those who’ve read her first memoir might be curious. To be released December 5.

This “poetic and often funny debut” has held my curiosity since I read about its longlisted nomination for the U.K. Booker Prize. Sunday Forrester is the autistic mother of sixteen-year-old Dolly, who will soon be leaving home. Sunday has strict routines that steady her daily living and an etiquette handbook that guides her through confusing social situations. The arrival of a couple who move in next door turns the dramatic tide as they “disarm Sunday with their glamor and charm, and proceed to deliciously break just about every rule in Sunday’s book.” I’m paraphrasing from the book’s summary, which also says All the Little Bird-Hearts is “an astute and poignant psychological portrait of a woman coming to terms with what love means.” It sounds promising. To be released December 5. Author Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow, like her protagonist Sunday, is autistic.

This book originally published in Finnish in 2016 and now has been translated into English. I know nothing about Finland’s engagements with the Soviet Union (such as the Winter War), which is why I find this interesting. The book’s summary states:

From the Winter War to Finland’s exit from World War II in 1944, a possible Soviet-backed coup in 1948, and Moscow’s designation of Finland as an enemy state in 1950, Finland was forced to navigate Stalin’s outsize political and territorial demands.

What also attracts me is the part of the summary that states we get “a dramatic reconstruction of Finland’s unlikely survival at a time when the nation’s very existence was at stake.”

I’m a little early here, as How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950 won’t be available until January 9 (unless you shop in the U.K. where it’s available now). A reading sample is already available, if you shop Amazon or visit the publisher’s website, to give you an idea of the prose style and content.